Personal Space
by Kootenai
Summary: Clint Barton needs his sleep when he is not on the job, but the Avengers are a noisy bunch...


Unlike Tony Stark, Clint Barton needed regular amounts of sleep when he wasn't his turn to save the day (nobody ever said "Hey, isn't it awesome that Hawkeye saved the day?" No it was always, "Captain America _this_" "Tony Stark _that_". Not that Clint wanted the attention or anything, he just wanted _a little_ credit.). However, life at Avengers Tower was anything but restful.

The Avengers kept odd hours. Steve was usually asleep by ten or eleven, but awake at four am, which Clint couldn't wrap his head around. Bruce had his own schedule that he didn't share with anyone else. Thor was in and out of the tower, coming and going like the rain. Natasha slept when she could, which wasn't always a healthy schedule. And Tony? Well... The man was a machine that ran on coffee and worked until his gears needed fixing. Sometimes Clint sat in the air vents over Tony's work space and whispered a few really good ideas down to a Tony who had been awake and working for 49 straight hours.

"Clint could use some more arrows."

"…That might not be a bad idea," he mumbled to himself. "You know, maybe give 'em trackers or something so we can find them later and I don't have to keep making new ones for the guy. JARVIS? New project… call it Hawkass. Okay, good…"

So, yeah, he often got things from Tony, but sometimes they were half-formed ideas of a man whose blood was made of Italian Roast. Example A: the Sentient Roomba Army. Clint had to deal with that because he wanted a low, fast moving target at the same time Steve decided they needed to clean up after themselves.

Out of everything he was ever sent to do, any mission, any operation, anything he'd seen in the circus, nothing compared to the horror that was the Sentient Roomba Army.

He still gets nightmares.

Which means he doesn't get to rest around Tony.

When Clint spent time with Bruce, they usually cooked. Between a scientist and an ex-carny, they are actually pretty skilled chefs. Their relationship was more of a friendly chat while chopping vegetables, but Clint never really got off his guard around Bruce because he didn't know where the boundaries were. Tony could push them all he wanted, but Clint would like to stay in one piece, _thank you very much_.

Also, no sleeping in the kitchen. That's stupid.

His interactions with Steve were general and they didn't spend a lot of time one-on-one, and that was okay. The most Clint saw of Cap was when he was in the gym. Sometimes he'd come down from the rafters to spar with him, but most of the time he was content to shout the occasional encouragement or snide remark on his form. Steve seemed to smile a little more when Clint would shout the odds on a sparring match from somewhere near the ceiling.

But Clint was used to violence around him and his body was conditioned to stay awake during certain circumstances. So the sounds of people fighting? Not something he could get restful rest around.

Thor… well, that one didn't even need explaining.

So when Clint was tired and not on a mission but couldn't find somewhere to sleep, went to find Natasha. She liked to curl up on a couch with a mug of Russian Tea and a mystery novel. He wandered in and gave her the best "I-am-an-innocent-child-who-needs-a-soothing-paren tal-figure" face, which usually earned him a quirked eyebrow followed by a short nod.

Clint sat on the floor in front of her and leaned his head back against her shins, and she went back to reading, sometimes running her fingers through his hair in a comforting gesture.

Closing his eyes, he took a nap and when he woke up he found Natasha gone and a crick in his neck. But naps weren't equivalent to a full night's rest, so he had to find somewhere else.

It wasn't until he had whined about having an indoor archery range to Tony, who in the end gave the space to him just so he would stop pelting him with small pieces of Hammer Tech while he was doing things in the tower. (He also may or may not have gotten Dummy to offer Tony Apple products and might or might not have placed a few remote control lighter gadgets in the workspace so Dummy would randomly use the fire extinguisher. But nobody could hold him accountable for it so it could've been anybody.) Clint finally had a recreational space of his own, but it wasn't right. _Yet._

Over the course of a month, things started to go missing. The non-sentiant coffee maker from the kitchen, Thor's indestructable poptart toaster (there had been tears and hastily made promises of newer and better toasters), blankets from the family room, extra pillows from Steve's bed (which he said he didn't mind because he only needed one, but he didn't appreciate the breach of privacy), one of Tony's mini-fridges (which he didn't realize was ever gone), one of Bruce's mugs that he didn't use often, and some other odds and ends. Natasha said that she was missing something, but never said what and apparently it reappeared the following day. It all came to a head though the day Nick Fury marched into the kitchen.

"Where the fuck is Agent Barton?" he demanded of the four Avengers in the room.

Bruce and Natasha looked at each other and shrugged, while Steve shook his head slowly and looked at Thor who shoved a poptart into his mouth and still managed to look thoughtful. It was then that Tony stumbled into the kitchen and made grabby hands for something. Steve put a cup of coffee on the counter for Tony to take. The room was silent while he drank and poured a second cup. Fury shifted his weight and looked pointedly at Stark, who didn't notice him until halfway through a third cup.

"Fury, what brings you here on such a glorious Tuesday morning?"

Steve coughed a gentle, "Friday" before sitting back down.

"Right, Friday morning? It is morning right?" Steve gave him a nod.

"Agent Barton has taken something of mine, which I need back immedietly. Where is he?" Fury crossed his arms and scowled.

"JARVIS? Can you help the good man?"

"Certainly, Sir. Master Barton is in the Indoor Archery Range."

Tony gestured vaguely towards Fury while taking a drink, "There you go."

"We have an Archery Range?" Steve asked while Bruce raised an eyebrow over his mug of tea.

"Well, it used to be the other indoor pool, but…" Tony gave a shrug.

"Why do you have tw-" Steve started.

"Take me there now, Stark," Fury interrupted, growling.

"Do I have to? Come on, why do- okay stop looking like- okay you know what fine. This way. Class field trip."

Tony led most of the Avengers plus Fury down a hall, into an elevator, down a few floors and down another hall, where they came to a glass door that had been spray painted so they couldn't see in. Stark raised an eyebrow and tried to enter a passcode.

"I'm sorry, Sir, but that is incorrect."

Tony scowled and tried a few other codes, even his override, but none of them worked.

"Okay, so who feels like breaking down a door on this fine morning?"

"I can go get my shield?"

Sighing Tony turned to the door and started pounding against it, "HAWKASS, YOU OPEN THIS DOOR OR I'LL GET THE ROOMBAS I SWEAR."

There was a moment of silence where Fury furrowed his eyebrows and mouthed the word "Roomba?" but Natasha gave him a quick shake of the head. He was about to ask for clarification when the door clicked open and they looked inside.

In one of the corners of the large room was a big platform that was high enough to be a good vantage point but not bang your head on the ceiling if you stood. It had sides that were lined with pillows and they could see a blanket or two draped over the edge.

They walked towards it and a ladder was thrown down at them.

"You get to see it once and then that's it, only because I don't want to deal with those fucking Doombas."

Steve and Bruce looked at each other and shrugged, Natasha shook her head and Tony muttered something about "we should copyright that so Dr. Doom doesn't use it…" Fury was impartial to reacting.

The group ascended the ladder one at a time and were met with the sight of Clint laying on one of a few matresses with a laptop on his stomach while watching Brave. All around him were pillows from different rooms, blankets were strewn about, the coffee maker was sitting on top of Tony's mini-fridge, Bruce's mug was hanging from a little hook nearby, and on the fridge a photo of Clint and Natasha having lunch in their civvies was held up by a magnet. Thor's indestructable toaster was placed near a miniature flagpole that had a flag flying that said "Hawkeye Club: Nobody Else Allowed" and flying beneath it was what looked like…

"You get my goddammed eye patch off your fucking flagpole now, Barton."

Tony looked torn between astonishment, joy, laughter, and a smirk. In the end he raised an eyebrow at Clint, who glared back at him.

"Don't you dare."

"Who me? Do what?"

"Don't say it."

Tony put his hands up in surrender, "Fine, fine. Okay. Well, nice nes- um, place you got here."

"Thanks, you can leave now."

"Not until I get my eye patch back."

"You've got twenty. You're not going to miss one."

Fury scowled while Natasha gave the softest hint of a smile. Thor and Bruce had been discussing the "worthiness" and stability of the platform and Bruce was looking more and more concerned.

"I think we should get off. I'm not sure the platform was meant to hold all of us."

Clint snorted, "Nope. Just me and the essentials." He looked off for a moment, thinking. "I'm actually not sure how much weight it can take. I didn't build it for anybody else."

Steve tilted his head slightly and smiled politely, "Well, sorry for imposing on your space, Clint. We'll leave you to… whatever you were doing."

"We are not going until-"

"Director Fury," and there was the Captain America voice, "I think we should respect Clint's space. He took the time to make it for himself, and he deserves to be able to relax where he'd like. We should leave him alone."

Thor nodded enthusiastically, "Much agreed! A warrior's space is an important and sacred thing."

Steve gave Thor a greatful look and Bruce gave a tight smile and said something about "respecting personal space" while Tony shrugged.

Fury looked between them all and saw he wasn't going to recieve any back up, so he turned on Clint. "I expect you to fill out all the accident reports and file them for the next month, understood?"

Clint gave a two finger salute, "Yessir."

Director Fury gave him a final glare and then climbed down the ladder, the rest of the Avengers behind him except Natasha. She gave him a soft look and he gave a non-commital shrug.

"I'm glad you accepted the Tower as home."

"What makes you say I did," he teased.

Natasha gave him a look at pat him on the shoulder once, "I know what it's like to want something permanent and have to make it for yourself." Then she gave him a bit of a shove, "But you better let me watch crappy movies up here sometimes or else."

Clint stuck out his tongue as she walked away, "Make me."

When she joined the rest of the team below, Thor asked the group, "Why did the Eye of Hawk take our possesions?"

"I'm sure they represented something important," was all Natasha said on the matter.

The next morning at 2 am the tower suddenly had posters with Clint's face on a bird's body flying towards it's nest. They all had slogans like: "BEWARE NESTING BIRDS" "DO NOT DISTURB THE WILDLIFE IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT" and "THE LARGENESS OF A BIRD'S NEST IS COMPENSATING FOR WOODY WOOD PECKER" and at the bottom of the posters was a Stark Logo.

Everyone woke up to the loud and angry shouts of "GODDAMMIT STARK!" followed by insane laughter.


End file.
